Tiered evidence initiatives are an important federal strategy to incentivize and accelerate the use of rigorous evidence in planning, implementing, and assessing social service investments. The Social Innovation Fund (SIF), a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service, adopted a public-private partnership approach to tiered…

The federal role in higher education has grown over the past two decades, and now a new administration has the opportunity to strengthen policies that support students and their colleges and universities. To help inform these decisions, the Urban Institute convened a bipartisan group of scholars and policy advisers to write a series of memos…

Since the first child care Quality Rating System (QRS) was implemented in Oklahoma 11 years ago (in 1998), 16 additional statewide systems have been launched and numerous states are piloting or developing a QRS (Zaslow, Tout, & Martinez-Beck, forthcoming). As QRS stakeholders across the nation look ahead to the next decade, it is important to take…

Discusses the formation of the Interdepartmental Council to Coordinate All Federal Juvenile Delinquency Programs, outlines National Policy Objectives, and reviews efforts at research and evaluation. (EH)

Evaluates the activities of the Committee on Basic Research in Education (COBRE), pointing out that its work was based on the premises that basic research is oriented to the academic disciplines, that its outcomes are scientific knowledge as opposed to products or solutions, and that its outcomes are unpredictable. (Author/JM)

Discusses research which focused on two topics: research conducted for the evaluation of major governmental social programs, and competitive public contracting as the instrumentality for bringing about mobilization of specific resources for that purpose; the need to evaluate public programs has been a major source of expanding demand for social…

To evaluate the effect of three Houston Neighborhood Youth Corps (NYC) out-of school programs on work attitudes and job futures of poverty youth as well as to provide recommendations for program improvement, statistical data were gathered from NYC sponsors' reports and from the trainees' personal folders. The accuracy of the data is limited…

Collated and analyzed are part of the results of the evaluation of a Canadian government program for helping scientific research. The analysis deals with the relationship between public authorities and the university community in Quebec Province. (BT)

Argues that the mood of today's racial climate, the ideological demands of many minority social scientists, and the governmental research and funding policies all come together and suggest a racial change in the search for knowledge, and in the methodology and values of social science research. (Author/JM)

Noting that one of the major ways in which social science can be utilized by society, it is stated, is through the application of experimental method to analysis of social problems, this article explores the organizational and institutional conditions under which social experimentation might be most effectively utilized for the benefit of society.…

This paper identifies various key aspects of the history and administration of federal compensatory education, describes the problems and issues associated with these, and suggests some ways in which research might help further program goals. It is intended as a discussion paper designed to highlight some crucial target areas for a major study of…

Evaluation of Head Start has been based on four sources of information: (1) census surveys of children and families served and programs offered, (2) special research, projects on child development and experimental programs, (3) a longitudinal study of the development of low income children, and (4) a series of national evaluation studies.…

The discrepancies between the comprehensive design for Follow Through evaluation and the program management's needs of the seven models in Philadelphia are discussed. The national evaluation has focused on pupil performance and achievement data. The local evaluation, conducted since 1968, has focused on: (1) the assessment of the correspondence…

This report assesses federal efforts to implement the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) during its first four years as law. The report begins by describing the politics and the players in the passage and implementation of the ADA and then discusses how technical assistance precedes enforcement of ADA. Complaints filed under the ADA and the…

This report reviews the impact of the categorical eligibility provision of the Food Security Act of 1985 (FSA) on the program participation, administrative costs, and error rates of the Food Stamp Program (FSP). The Act automatically granted eligibility for the FSP to households composed entirely of participants in the Aid to Families with…